A call queue is a holding area for incoming calls. Your caller will be greeted with a welcome message, then will hear music (or your own marketing message) until the call is answered. Call queue settings can be customised to ensure your calls are handled correctly while giving callers get the best possible customer service experience.
Please note: we highly recommend that you use the Login and Logout functionality to ensure only those ready for calls are in the queue.
Adding a Call Queue
On the left of the screen click Call Queues. Any existing queues are listed.
To add a new call queue, click the Add queue button.
Enter a unique 3-digit number for the queue, and a name to describe it.
Click Confirm to add the queue.
Configuring a Call Queue
Click the call queue you want to edit. The extension you select is highlighted with a grey outline.
Welcome message allows you to select a greeting that you have already uploaded
Maximum hold time specifies the maximum duration your caller should be kept on hold before timing out
Timeout destination specifies the destination if the hold duration exceeds the maximum hold time
Under Members, you can add and remove extensions from the call queue. To add or remove members, click the Edit group members button. You can also choose the order that the extensions will ring. Select one extension from the list, then use the arrow icons to move it up or down.
Advanced Call Queue Options
Click the Advanced icon to reveal the advanced settings for the call queue:
- Ring strategy determines the way calls are passed to call queue members. See the next section for a detailed definition
- Ring members for determines the ring duration on each attempt
- Retry after sets the amount of time the system will wait before trying each extension again. This process continues until the maximum hold time is met
- Caller should hear allows you to set music or a dialtone as the caller’s audio while in the queue
- Announce position tells the caller their current position in the queue
- Keypress destination allows the caller to press a key to jump out of the queue to a different destination
- Periodic announcement plays a greeting or marketing message at regular intervals
Metrics Options
Click on the Metrics icon to see three further fields that relate to how statistics are handled for the queue:
- Service level threshold is the time in seconds you aim to answer calls
- Abandoned threshold the time in seconds a call has to have been in the queue to be included in the statistics, anything shorter than this will be discounted
- Notification email the address to send notifications of abandoned calls (calls must have been in the queue longer than the threshold above)
Ring strategy settings
Ring strategy allows you to determine how calls are passed to call queue members:
- Ring all rings all extensions simultaneously
- Linear distributes calls according to your list order, from top to bottom
- Round robin remembers who took the last call and will start ringing the following extension in the list.
- Fewest calls transfers the call to the user who has answered the fewest calls so far and will continue to try that person until they pick up (we highly recommend you use the Queue Login and Logout feature with this ring strategy)
- Least recent transfers the call to the user who least recently answered a call and will continue to try that person until they pick up (we highly recommend you use the Queue Login and Logout feature with this ring strategy)
- Random passes the calls through to destinations in a random order
Queue Login and Logout
*98 - log out of queue (stop receiving calls)
*96 - log back into queue (start receiving calls)
*97 - toggles between logging in / logging out of a queue
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